Lucy was there to assist after Walker left—with a brush of his hand over Tyler’s tight black curls and a touch of his knuckles to Lara’s cheek. When the boy’s parents arrived, Lucy made sure the distraught couple didn’t disrupt Lara.

Much as Lara understood their worry and fear, she needed to focus. The scanners confirmed what she’d suspected: The venom had provoked an overwhelming negative reaction in the pup’s body, the worst she’d ever seen. The average changeling, child or adult, would’ve perhaps felt a tingling, maybe had to deal with an itchy red bump for an hour or so, but that was it.

Tyler’s entire body was threatening to shut down.

“I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay,” she murmured, injecting him with a drug designed to counteract the worst of the effects, before using her abilities to stabilize the systems of his body. She not only soothed the ragged edges, she worked to make sure he’d never again respond in the same dangerous way to the same type of sting.

If an M-Psy or a human physician had asked her how she did what she did, she couldn’t have explained it except to say that she could sense an imbalance, one at the source of the reaction. All she had to do was nudge Tyler’s body back into the correct equilibrium.

The task took over three hours.

“I’ve eliminated the risk of another extreme reaction,” she said to his parents afterward, rubbing the cramp from the back of her neck. “It should protect him against other allergens as well, but I’m going to keep him in the infirmary, run a battery of tests to make certain.”

“As long as you want.” Hugging Lara, the couple left to sit with their sleeping son.

“Did you call Walker?” Lara asked Lucy once they were alone, having given the instruction the instant she knew Tyler would pull through.

“Yes,” the nurse replied. “He’s still with the other kids, wanted to make sure they were okay.”

Lara had expected nothing less from her mate. “Hawke?”

“He’s not in the den, but I contacted him with an update.” Lucy blocked her when Lara would’ve headed for her office. “You need to sit down, rest. There’s fresh coffee and sandwiches in the break room. I’ll handle anything Tyler and his parents need.”

Exhausted, Lara didn’t argue…but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t relax. Not when the bond remained so icily calm on Walker’s end. The remoteness of it made her want to scream, her wolf clawing at the insides of her skin. She’d looked into his eyes, glimpsed the intense, protective worry ripping him apart, and yet if she were to judge from the bond, she’d say he was unmoved by the near tragedy.

A sob burst out of her throat.